Fish Fingers and Pickles
by pepperama
Summary: Teddy finds himself a friend while visiting his godfather. Just a short and sweet little drabble. H/G


**A/N: **So the theme for this group "hg100" on LiveJournal (which I follow) was "green" one week, and this immediately popped into my head and I thought I'd give it a go. Of course, since it's me writing it, it went a bit over the 100 word limit (more than eight times over, whoops!) Completely un-betaed, so all problems are my own and mine alone. Sorry about that.

It's Harry/Ginny!

It's G! Maybe PG? Where is that line? I don't really understand it. Probably G. If you're reading this the distinction between G and PG is probably not relevant to you anymore, so... yes! There we go.

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Disclaimer: I have no ownership over any aspect of Harry Potter and no compensation is made from this work.

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Teddy came rushing into the living room as fast as his little legs could carry him, clutching something to his chest and staring intently at it instead of looking where he was going. This inevitably had him running headlong into Ginny's legs.

"Watch it there, mate," Harry put a steadying hand on Teddy's shoulder to keep him still while a laughing Ginny regained her footing.

"What do you have there?" Ginny asked, and Teddy held up his bundle for inspection, his eyes bulging in excitement and accomplishment, his hair rapidly cycling through shades and hues. In his hands wiggled a very terrified looking toad.

"Can I keep him?" Teddy yelled, because, as all young children know, increasing your volume indicates to everyone the supreme importance of what you are saying.

The toad's eyes were bulging now too and it appeared to be having difficulty breathing.

"I don't know if your Grandmother would appreciate having a toad around, Teddy," Harry said, looking at Ginny for help.

"Where on earth did you find this guy?" Ginny asked instead. Number Twelve's small, walled-in garden was not exactly rife with wildlife.

"Ou-side" Teddy explained helpfully, tilting his head in the direction from which he had come flying in moments before, and then fixing on Harry again. He knew the weak link in this scenario. "Pwrease? Pwretty pwrease?" Teddy begged, giving the toad a not-so-healthy squeeze with each drawn-out word. The toad looked ready to pop.

"Mate, you're going to break it if you keep squeezing it like that," Harry said, reaching down to loosen the boy's hands.

"His name is Pickres!" Teddy defended, pulling Pickles back against his chest. Harry's eyebrow's shot up and he glanced over at Ginny.

"Pickles the toad?" He asked, suggestively, still looking at Ginny. Her mouth dropped open slightly as she realized what Harry was getting at and she fixed him with a glare.

"Uh huh! Cuz he wrooks wrike a pickre! Can I keep him? Pwrease? He match your eyes, see? Cuz he wrike you!" Teddy turned his hair green to match Harry's eyes. He hadn't fully grasped the fact that most things, unlike him, could not choose to match their features to the things that they liked.

This, of course, was too much for Harry. Still looking at Ginny, his shoulders shook with his barely-suppressed mirth, but a snort and a chuckle soon broke loose. Ginny tried to keep up her appalled demeanor, huffing at him and glaring hard, but she was clearly trying not to smile.

"So my eyes are as green as Pickles the toad?"

Teddy was looking back and forth between the two young adults, confused and slightly annoyed by their reaction.

"Alright, shut it, Harry," Ginny said, hip checking him before hunkering down to be eye level with Teddy.

"Teddy, this is not a pet toad, it's home is outside, I don't think you should take it away from it's home, do you?" Ginny asked him delicately.

Teddy looked at her warily, his eyebrows crunching together, and pulled Pickles closer to him still. This was clearly a ploy.

"You wouldn't like it if a stranger came and took you away from your home, would you?"

"But I'm not a stranger!"

"You are to Pickles. And a giant one at that." Harry put in, having calmed himself down. Teddy stood there contemplating this, his tiny face scrunched up.

"How about we go put Pickles back in his home, where you found him, so he can be with his friends and family? They're probably worried about him, don't you think?" Ginny said, angling herself to look Teddy in the eye.

Teddy sniffed. "I couwd be his fwriend and famiry."

"But his other friends and family would miss him a whole lot, don't you think? I know we'd miss you _so much_if you went away and we never saw you again. We'd be heartbroken, Ted, and Pickles's family would be heartbroken if you kept him." Ginny pressed.

Harry's hand rubbed circles on his girlfriend's back as he watched her haggle with his Godson. She was better at this type of thing than he was. He had a tendency of getting on Andromeda's bad side when he was faced with these kinds of situations. It's not that he wanted to spoil Teddy - he knew full well the damage that could do - but it was just so hard to disappoint him.

Teddy's head was bowed, his feet were shuffling. It was the pose he adopted whenever he'd done something wrong or realized one of the adults in his life was right about something and he didn't want to admit to it or give up his side. Ginny knew she'd won.

"C'mon Teddy, let's go take Pickles home and say goodbye and then we can wash our hands and have some lunch. How do fish fingers sound?" Ginny asked while steering Teddy toward the garden door.

"Fish fingers!" Teddy exclaimed as he was guided over the threshold, nearly dropping Pickles down the steps in his excitement.

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The End.


End file.
